Separatio, Horatio.

So I'm breaking up with my personal trainer.

Granted, six weeks in, you can hardly even call it a relationship. But working out in the park under her direction has dredged up some interesting and unexpected unconscious material.

On the surface, things are good. I've made excellent progress. She has gotten me to endure things I would never have thought possible. Squats. Lunges. The dreaded jump-rope.

A few days ago, she and I had a sort of an emotional "check-in." Our six week package of sessions was coming to an end. She asked me how I thought I was progressing. And I said, "Physically, very well. But psychologically, I'm regressing." She was confused, and I told her that instead of developing my own will and determination, I was substituting hers. Looking for her approval.

She understood. She said I had come so far. That I was working so hard. That I made her proud and she was discovering that I was really such a good guy.

I was touched by her words. They brought a tear to my eye. Before I left that session, we verbally agreed to negotiate a new package of sessions.

But that night, I had a telling dream.

I dreamt I was on a couch, curled like a fetus. My trainer sat over me. Like a baby, I broke wind without thinking. She immediately disapproved, and I felt ashamed and embarrassed.

Through this dream, and I came to realize that by granting her authority over my body for an hour twice a week, I was in a sense abdicating my own responsibility for myself. I was making her into a mommy. She was in charge and I was along for the ride.

I thought about this dream, and then today I get an email from her.

She is doubling her hourly rate.

I had an instantaneous and deep emotional reaction. I felt angry. Hurt. Betrayed. I realized it was all projection on my part. By making her into a mommy, I was opening myself to the destructive side of the mother archetype, Kali, vagina dentata, darkmotherscream.

I thought of Hamlet's anger with Gertrude. She betrayed him more than anyone. So Hamlet had to break that umbilical cord. He did it roughly to give Gertrude a taste of the pain she delivered unto him.

But separation can also be smooth. My projection withdrawn, I sent a polite email saying I could not continue to work with her at the suggested rate, and that I had learned so much and would certainly recommend her to others, best, etc.

In truth, the money is largely the determining factor. But by ending the business relationship, I am also able to withdraw the projection and reclaim something of myself.

To lunge or not to lunge: that is the new question….